Danger, Will Robinson: They know you took the cookies.

Handsome, Pretty Handsome.

One of the formative TV shows of our youth, LOST IN SPACE, is rebooted as an enjoyable Netflix series, capturing all the dynamics of the original show, and leaving out the camp and the bubble-headed booby.

In the year 2046, the space-faring Family Robinson leaves a dying Earth, onboard a mothership of colonists, headed for the star system Alpha Centauri. En route, they are thrown off-course by an alien attack and separated from the mothership in their “pod,” the Jupiter 2 spacecraft. Crash-landing in uncharted territory, the Robinsons struggle to survive and regroup with other mothership survivors, or risk forever being – lost in space.

Clint Eastwood lookalike Toby Stephens (BLACK SAILS) is John Robinson, pilot of the Jupiter, a former Marine and absent father; sensual Molly Parker (HOUSE OF CARDS) is John’s estranged wife Maureen, aerospace engineer and captain of the Jupiter. 12-year-old Maxwell Jenkins is youngest child to the couple, Will Robinson, a scientific polymath; Mina Sundwall is teen Penny (whose scientific expertise I couldn’t quite figure) and Taylor Russell is 18-year-old Judy, oldest child from a previous father, and accredited doctor. (In the original 1965 series, only the unaired pilot episode detailed the scientific qualifications of the Robinson family, and since the public never saw that episode, there was no real nod given to science in that whole series. I’m so glad to see the explicit lean on intelligence and hard learning in this 2018 series.)

And the coolest cat of all – the Robot. But it isn’t part of the Jupiter crew (as the original Robot was) – it is an alien technomorph that Will befriends. There are many criticisms of the writing in this series, and the Robot’s “rescue” is a large plothole in Episode 01. With the powers it displays in later episodes – even in the scenes directly after its rescue! – it could not possibly have been trapped in this manner in a tree. Its incapacitation was a device for Will to “save” it, so it would be indebted and devote its power cells to Will’s service. Reminding us a little of Val Kilmer’s dog-robot A.M.E.E. (from RED PLANET), his face like a swirling stream of stars (like Rorschach from WATCHMEN), this A.I. Robot is inhabited by Brian Steele, the man second only to Doug Jones as the man-behind-the-motion-capture-monsters.

And Dr. Smith is a woman! Parker Posey (SUPERMAN RETURNS) is sociopath June Harris, a character exactly like Dumbo Donald Trump, in that every single thing she says is a lie. She steals the identity of a “real” Dr. Zachary Smith (cameo by none other than Bill Mumy!) and masquerades as a psychiatrist. At times, we wonder whether Posey’s wily, cynical grifter goes too far, her lies causing life-threatening situations, but upon re-viewing some of the original 1965 episodes, we see Dr. Smith has always been a liar of Dumbo Donald-ian proportions. For example, in episode 2-26 “Trip Through The Robot,” when Professor Robinson is inside the Robot saving Dr. Smith, he asks Smith, “Where’s Will?” and Smith replies without hesitation, “He’s outside,” so that Robinson will save Smith without the distraction of going back to save Will, whom Smith KNOWS is still trapped in the shrinking Robot! And once you accept that Smith is a sociopath (no matter how fruity or funny Harris made him), you start to realize how many of his lies might have led to peoples’ deaths, and you really wonder how the Robinsons never threw him out the airlock, as Don West suggested so many times…

Ignacio Serricchio (BONES) is Major Don West here, a mechanic on the mothership, The Resolute. Don is combination Jeremy Piven, Andrew Dice Clay, and every mobbed-up Italian from Little Italy. We imagine women put up with his braggadocio because he tempers it with that roguish smile; he’s a good-hearted con-man, not like the treacherous con-artistry of Smith. He might lie that he could fix your ship “with the right tools,” but he’ll be there to haul you out of the burning wreck, after it wasn’t fixed correctly by him. We discover in a later episode he is a smuggler of alcohol to the colonies—wait, so Don is a pilot, a smuggler, and a… rogue? I guess the galaxy needed another Han Solo after what Kylo Ren did.

The series creators (showrunner Zack Estrin and head writers Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless) have artfully re-crafted all the characters we know so well and forged the same types of interactions between them (i.e. Dr. Smith’s grifting with Will, Will’s obsessive TO CATCH A PREDATOR relationship with the Robot, Don’s quest to get lost in Judy’s space, Don’s hatred of Smith, etc.); not only that, the series ethos can only be described as “woke” (i.e. Maureen is the female captain rather than just the dutiful wife who prepares meals from their hydroponic garden, Judy is bi-racial and doesn’t pine after Don, all the female characters from other Jupiters are as integral to their missions as the females on the Jupiter 2. And Dr. Smith is a woman!).

That epic theme music from Season 3 of the original (written by John Williams) is a recurring motif, but rewritten by Christopher Lennertz so that it doesn’t “resolve” but floats off lost in space somewhere. Very annoying. There are scenes where the Jupiter 2 breaks out of a smoke-bank or into space, and the theme kicks in, and it brings tears to the eyes, and then – NO RESOLUTION. The theme just dies on the vine where the original would resolve and “turn around” for another stab. I thumb my nose at your street cred, Christopher.

In this first episode, “Impact,” the Robinsons must fight for survival against some very distressing situations (although Judy getting trapped in ice could only occur with the non-scientific unreality of a lake freezing from the bottom to the top!). The tale flashbacks at intervals to flesh out the characters and story: the Robinsons’ Jupiter 2 and scores of other Jupiters are part of a pioneering mission to Alpha Centauri, onboard a mothership called The Resolute, which suffers an alien attack that prompts the evacuation of all the Jupiters and their families.

We see the Robinson family before the mission, when John Robinson and Maureen were deeply in love (something about their relationship feels strained in the first episode and it is written and performed very subtly). Dr. Smith’s and Don West’s fateful insertions into the tale would be seen towards the end. And we also glean the scope of the colonization mission when we see The Resolute mothership in all its massive glory, the scores of Jupiter pods attached to it like flowers on vines. (The Jupiter shape is very cool – a cross between the original’s flying saucer design and the Millennium Falcon.

“I KNEW I shoulda taken that left turn at Albuquerque!”

Episode 01 begins with the family in full spacesuits and helmets, strapped to their seats around a circular table (I like it already! A modern spaceship with spacesuits, helmets and seatbelts!), playing cards in weightlessness onboard their Jupiter – but we know from the tension in the air it is only to take their minds off something horrible. We would have to wait for the final magnificent CGI scenes of this episode to reveal the cause of the terror – as we see the destruction of the mothership, while many Jupiters try to fly from its exploding debris; we see the first indications of atmosphere (of the planet this mêlée is orbiting) as the Jupiters and the debris start making slight contrails – and then the fleeing Jupiters are caught in the jetstream of flaming debris…

The number of negative reviews for this new LOST IN SPACE is startling. I am guessing these negative critiques are from people over 40, who compare the 2018 version to the original 1965 series that still lingers in their nostalgia memory banks. However, connecting to the original as insensible kids is not the same as viewing the reboot as cynical adults. If these critics are being honest, after its first innovative season in 1965, the original TV series morphed into THE WILL & DR. SMITH SHOW, FEATURING THE ROBOT, and skewed intentionally camp, to please younger audiences. Just because they’ve read a couple of screenplay books and know the word “CGI” now, these kitchen critics think they can judiciously complain about the acting in the 2018 version (which is very good), the effects (which are tentpole-movie standard), and rail about the non-science (which is no better or worse than any “science-based” TV series that has to bend physics for dramatic effect). All this vitriol, as if the 1965 series had Oscar-winning performances, seamless effects and watertight science, what with the mincing of Dr. Smith, the appearing and disappearing aliens in a flash of smokebomb, and every planet having breathable oxygen and every alien speaking English and never once re-fueling the Jupiter 2…

For those who don’t obstinately dismiss this 2018 LOST IN SPACE due to nostalgic idiocy, there is much to enjoy: the sincere character development is all here (dad who was away at war trying to reconnect with his kids, mother trying to find the balance between harridan and encourager, a grifter posing as a psychiatrist who can actually read people’s psyches correctly – because that is an unspoken talent of grifters!; a mechanical man stultifying his inner Hyde, and inspiring with his superhuman power), and the production values are astounding. A noteworthy aspect is that all the roles are scientists, even though some of the science is iffy – but for every bad science item criticized by faux-physicists, two commendable science aspects go unnoticed. And for those who miss Guy Williams’s smug, there is the constant Clint-squinting of Toby Stephens (he can’t help it, yeronner – it’s just his face!); and you gotta admit, you over-40s, that Molly Parker makes a ravishing MILF Maureen; for the millennials, I presume the kids might come off as smarty-pantsy (so Penny is thrown in to balance the nerd factor); and accepting Dr. Smith and the Robot as two very different beings from the originals will depend on your level of wokeness, I guess.

END

Righteous! Fire-breathing! Badass! But can’t kill one puny human.

Who knew Ancient Egypt had so many special effects?

Plot Flaw Alert Which No One Seems To Notice: In the visual gluttony called GODS OF EGYPT, evil god Set defeats virtuous god Horus by plucking out the source of Horus’s power – his eyes. Now Horus must go on a quest to retrieve his eyes, so that he can regain the power to defeat Set.

But wait, you dummies!—

If Set defeated Horus even when Horus had his eyes, then what good will it do Horus to get his eyes back? He was defeated even with the source of all his power intact – so… uh, what now, geniuses?

Thus this whole shaboo-shabah, this journey across netherworlds and cosmic oceans, this slogging through swamps and deserts, this battle against mega-sphinxes and ultra-cobras, all becomes extremely pointless. And very very very silly.

Danish-born Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is Horus, cutting an imposing figure that easily might have been a role for Aaron Eckhart or Thomas Jane (and we sometimes equate him with one of those more famous actors during the action sequences).

Manly Gerard Butler is Set, all square-jawed Welsh-Egyptian-British accent and thrumming deltoids, killing lesser gods and gaining their powers through – osmosis? ectoplasmic transfusion? zika virus? All we know is: with those powers, he even defeats his all-powerful father, the god of creation, Ra (Geoffrey Rush), who drives his magic sky bus by apparently turning actual physical levers. Then he has to have a rest on his steps in the evening from all the exertion. You lost me at magic underwear.

Brenton Thwaites is Bek, a human who helps Horus regain his eyes, so that Horus will in return help Bek rescue his lady love (Courtney Eaton) from the jaws of Anubis, the god of deathly judgment. Exotic Elodie Yung is Hathor, the goddess of love, who serves time with Set while he’s a winner and then abandons him when the tables turn. Why are so many leading ladies portrayed in this haphazard time-serving manner? Verbose Chadwick Boseman is the god scholar Thoth, the only god who looks African in this movie set in Africa.

“You faithless human! So you think I only exist because Aaron Eckhart’s agent asked for too much money?”

Writers Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless, and visionary director Alex Proyas try to imbue GODS OF EGYPT with a new slant: that of the ancient gods actually existing alongside men, ruling over Egypt like any imperial class. The 8-foot tall gods physically tower over their human subjects (who are screen-captured here in the same manner as the Hobbits in LORD OF THE RINGS – as smaller people alongside giants). The wars and skirmishes are basically between the gods over the manner of ruling the humans. It’s a workable concept, and ye gods I love the ancient Greek, Roman and Egyptian mythologies (despite some of the contradictions and arbitrary magic), but the filmmakers get caught up in gratuitous overkill when it comes to their efx sandbox.

The gods arbitrarily turn from human form to CGI versions of themselves; in their full CG eye-strain, they resemble their hieroglyphs, therefore Horus is a silver falcon with steel-belted wings and Anubis is a jackal-headed humanoid, etc. Set is many-gods-in-one, so he can turn into any old party favor he wants, just like it says in the Bible. One wonders why they even bother battling in their human forms if their god versions are so much more powerful and sexy. The backgrounds are ALL fake-looking, with many scenes nothing but computer graphic imagery, including all the foreground and characters. Some of the full-CGI characters like the minotaurs look jerky, with mismatched voices; there are giant snakes that blow fire, a Sphinx whose booming voice we cannot understand, and a soundtrack that oddly keeps reminding us of the main theme of Stranger In Paradise.

Here’s something else that doesn’t make sense in a world where gods and magic exist: Set usurps the throne of benevolent god king Osiris (Bryan Brown, complete with Australian-Egyptian accent), in order to enslave Egypt’s humans… to force them to build a tower for him; a tower he could just as easily have built, uh, with his magic and his own gigantic minotaur-minions. Ancient kings (and ancient Americans) enslaved people to perform tasks that were too cost-prohibitive with an employed labor force. But Set doesn’t need money. He’s magic. So why does he need slaves? If he wants to “rule over Egypt,” just kill Osiris, change the name-plates on the Ionic columns and rule over a land fertile and productive with an obviously flourishing economy. Why turn it into ochre filth and things burning on the horizon? Is this any way to run a big-dick-ocracy?

In the end, Horus discovers his “humanity” and realizes he doesn’t need his other eye to be more powerful than Set (because the focus groups say he looks more ruggedly sexy with that eye-patch), proving that gods can learn life lessons too, which means everything that just happened in the movie is even more unnecessary and pointless than it already was.

Ironically, GODS OF EGYPT will appeal to those who will never have the propensity to educate themselves on the mythical gods of ancient Egypt.

END